I feel bad and just need to vent

[Versant]

I've posted here a few times to ask for perspective and advice on things. This is not like that, I just feel terrible and need to put it into words.

Over the last couple of days we travelled back from my wife's parents place, where we had stayed for a bit over a week after a funeral. I think I was the only one glad that we left, everyone else was a bit down.

Once finally home, my wife told me that I always seem to turn really nasty to her right after we leave her parents' place. (I've noticed this too: whenever she's stressed out or down about something, the accusations of mistreatment often follow soon after.)

I tried to ask about what had happened, and the response was the maddening "Oh, you know very well what you did and I won't play along pretending you don't".
(Once, some years ago, we had a nice quiet morning with holding hands and intimate conversation. Until suddenly she filpped and kicked me out, and refused to let me come back home until I admit to what I did. I had no clue what it was. Over the course of the day, I managed to piece enough clues from the angry, abruptly ending calls and flaming texts to finally guess correctly, be able to apologize and return. Turns out when I had gotten up during our conversation and poured myself a hot drink, I had neglected to ask her if she wanted some too - on purpose, to make her feel bad, she thought.)

"If you manage to be so nasty, it must be on purpose, so don't pretend you don't know." Not much I can do about that, and I tried to keep calm and carry on with my own things. Little while later she started asking questions about the photo album I had given her as a gift in the morning at the hotel on our way back home.
I felt really good about that gift. Even if we are not doing great, and it feels a bit weird doing something nice to someone who's just recently told me she hates me... And it feels sad that this kind of thing is not reciprocated... It still feels good to do something nice. And building a bit of goodwill, good karma, doesn't sound too bad. Also I made her a similar album when our first child was at the same age, and wanted to keep doing that.

She demanded to know why I had chosen those photos and kept the ones in my luggage. (Nice to know she went through my stuff, wasn't aware she'd have done that for a few years now.) Long story short, I had pictures of her with the children for the album and a few pictures of me with the children made for myself while at it. She didn't feature in those pictures, so to her that proves I am planning to get custody of our older child and remove her from his life.

Not sure why she was excluding the baby from this supposed plan of mine. Not sure if this album thing was the nastiness she was talking about earlier, or if there's something more and this was just another thing. Not sure how a person jumps from receiving a nice gift to believing the absolute worst things about the one giving the gift.

I found this quite hard to deal with. Going from feeling good about having done something nice for her to the hopelessness of the insane accusations was too much of a drop. I kind of ...rejected it and only interacted the bare minimum and concentrated on something different to the best of my ability.
She told me she's set the wheels in motion to make sure she won't be opressed by me anymore. I made no comment. After going to bed she got up and grabbed her laptop "to do something she should have done years ago". I didn't bother asking what she was doing. Later she got up again and started laying some facts on me in seemingly friendly and calm way, but when she reached the point of me being the nastiest person she has ever known, I told her I won't participate in this conversation.

I guess there was nothing suprising or new here really. It just somehow got to me worse this time.

[15years]

This all sounds so familiar. Good of you to not start believing her, at least sounds like you've kept your reality.

I relate to the feeling you describe of wanting to do something nice even in that circumstance.

Stay strong, you're doing good. It simply isn't in your power to change her thinking.

[Pook075]

I'm so sorry you're going through this.  Being with family causes stress, and obviously burying a loved one causes stress as well.  For those with mental illness, these are particularly trying times and it can make them "look for the other shoe to drop" with everyone around them.

With my BPD ex-wife, I couldn't solve these conversations.  But I was able to with my BPD daughter and it was simply saying, "Hey, what's going on?  I love you and I'm always here for you...let's talk this out."

That didn't work the first time, mind you, and it didn't work dozens of times after that.  But eventually, she realized that she was painting me in the worst possible light and seeing my actions as aggressive.  I was just trying to help the kid and i didn't want to fight anymore.  Over time, we were able to turn things around and our relationship is strong today.

I did get there with my now ex-wife as well, and we can have fairly normal conversations whenever one of us needs to reach out.  But there's certain things that I can say that will make her go into instant rage mode...and they're not what you'd expect.  One of them was, "I looked forward to you getting home from work every single day...."  That leads to scorched earth because it's a truth she just can't accept...her disordered thinking convinced her otherwise.

I wish you luck my friend.  Communication is the key though, get her to talk about what's really going on.  You do that by showing love, compassion, and patience, without any sign of judgement or remorse.